What are some Government Approaches to Encouraging Innovation?
The primary government approaches to encouraging innovation include:
- Intellectual property – Granting intellectual property rights, a firm is able to earn monopoly profits on its product for a period of time—which offers an incentive for research and development.
- Government Spending on Research & Development – Government spending can provide direct financial support for research and development (R&D) conducted at colleges and universities, nonprofit research entities, and sometimes by private firms, as well as at government-run laboratories.
- Tax Breaks for Research & Development – The federal government refers to this policy as the research and experimentation (R&E) tax credit aimed at stimulating additional private sector investment.
- Cooperative Research – State and federal governments support research in a variety of ways. Cooperation between government-funded universities, academies, and the private sector can spur product innovation and create whole new industries.
Related Topics
- Market Competition and Innovation
- New Technology and Positive Externalities
- Externality
- Network Externality
- Pigovian Tax
- Coase Theorem
- Agglomeration Diseconomies
- Education – Private and Social Rate of Return
- Government Approaches to Encouraging Innovation
- Public Good
- Public, Private, Club, Common Goods
- Excludable and Rivalrous Goods
- What is the Free Rider Problem for Public Goods?
- Free Rider
- Social Loafing
- Role of Government in Paying for Public Goods
- What is the Tragedy of Commons for Common Resources?
- Income Inequality
- Poverty Line?
- Poverty Trap
- Public Safety Net
- Measuring Income Inequality
- Lorenz Curve
- Ladder of Opportunity
- Tradeoff between Incentives and Income Equality